Wednesday 23 May 2012 05.20 EDT
First published on Wednesday 23 May 2012 05.20 EDT

No one doubts that NHS leaders are facing some of the most difficult challenges in the history of the health service.

With £20bn to be made in efficiency savings, an ageing population with more long-term and complex needs, and a complete restructuring of the system, pressure on NHS managers is intense. But will these new challenges sort the wheat from the chaff?

Jan Sobieraj, the new interim managing director of the NHS Leadership Academy, thinks so. It's his job to ensure that managers are equipped to deal with the challenges ahead and to avoid a scenario where, as he puts it, "you can be a leader because you turned up to the grad scheme and got an interview".

Sobieraj thinks the NHS will now see a strategic shift in the way things are run. His task ahead does not sound like an easy one. The academy will be responsible for leadership training and development across the country at both local and national level, as smaller development schemes and support are phased out.

As well as running specific programmes, the academy has been given the job of ensuring that both doctors in the new clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), and leaders in bodies such as Public Health England, Monitor and the new health and wellbeing boards have the skills they need to handle their changing roles in the new NHS.

Sobieraj is under no illusions of what his role with the academy involves, but for him, integration is key to moving forward with the reforms which may offer a new start for healthcare managers. "We've got huge expectations on us. There's a need for a different service, more joined-up care, efficiency savings, and all these need different skills than in the past," he says. "Leadership can make a fundamental difference."

He adds: "People say you've got all these challenges and a new structure – doesn't it make it difficult? No, it does not, it makes it easier. The only way forward is an integrated approach where leaders across the system are looking up and down and across the system.

"Leaders will have to thrash through. These changes might offer managers the chance to do things that they might have wanted to do for a while, and they might be released by this."

Sobieraj makes it clear that the academy's priority is to ensure all NHS leaders understand "what good looks like". He acknowledges that there are different approaches across the system and explains that the new leadership framework, a set of five standards set out by the academy for all staff and two for the most senior, looks to address this.

"The new framework is the first one that supports everyone. It looks at how we support, manage, improve, set direction and is already being used to drive into student training with medical students."

Sobieraj also says the academy's 360-degree assessment tool should already be in use by leaders in the sector: "Everyone has to find out what they're like as a leader. No one's perfect and it offers tips to build up skills and behaviour".

He knows, however, that there is still more that can be done. Implementing a national leadership strategy has to ensure that local support is not lost and Sobieraj is aware that this is a key issue: "We need to ensure we've got local capability to support local services. We've got great stuff happening; we just need to scale it up."

Diversity is another major area for the academy. "One of our fundamental challenges is making sure that leaders are recognised as part of the community that they are serving; we need leaders at all levels and organisations that are connected. We are making progress but need to keep going on that. We're not there yet by any means."

As the academy prepares to confront these challenges, what will be the real test of its success? Sobieraj says it will be whether patients get better outcomes and become more engaged, but suggests there is far more to be done: "We need to look at how to shift hospitals to communities, and we need to support managers to take a risk.

"The academy is not just a body that has a few development programmes, it is a key intervention that will enable managers to make decisions that will provide better care for patients."